DOCTOR WHO 50th LIVE PRE-SHOW CROSSES PLATFORMS TO CONNECT FANS IN THE U.S. AND AROUND THE WORLD

New York – November 19, 2013 – Announced today, BBC AMERICA has partnered with Nerdist Industries to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who with the first ever live simulcast pre-show from the YouTube Space Los Angeles. Hosted by Veronica Belmont, the Doctor Who 50th Live Pre-Show will air November 23, 2:30pm ET on BBC AMERICA and stream to audiences globally on BBC AMERICA’s YouTube channel (youtube.com/bbcamericatv) just prior to the premiere of Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary special Doctor Who: The Day of The Doctor at 2:50pm ET.

Doctor Who 50th Live Pre-Show will be an all-out celebration of 50 years of Doctor Who and its passionate fans. As the world awaits the global simulcast of the anniversary special, the pre-show will feature a live curation of fan-created content being shared on social media from celebrations around the globe, plus chats with special guests including YouTube star Phil DeFranco.

Perry Simon, General Manager, BBC AMERICA commented: “Doctor Who has an amazing social media following and is enormously popular, with millions of views on YouTube. Partnering with YouTube on an innovative pre-show will enable fans everywhere to join our celebration of this groundbreaking series’ 50th anniversary.”

“We’re very excited to work with BBC AMERICA and Nerdist on this first ever simulcast from YouTube Space LA and are looking forward to welcoming Doctor Who fans and YouTube talents for a truly innovative pre-show experience connecting communities all across the world,” said Liam Collins, Head of YouTube Space LA.

Veronica Belmont, co-host of the science fiction and fantasy YouTube video show, audio podcast, and book club The Sword and Laser, added: “I’m happy to report that the live pre-show went off without a hitch, and that fans everywhere thoroughly enjoyed The Day of the Doctor. At least, they did in the time stream I just came from.”

Following the anniversary special, BBC AMERICA’s YouTube channel will host a YouTube-exclusive post-show at 4:00pm ET. In addition, BBC AMERICA and BBC AMERICA’s YouTube channel will simulcast a primetime pre-show at 7:00pm ET, which will look at the day’s events ahead of BBC AMERICA’s primetime broadcast of the anniversary special.

The Doctor Who 50th Live Pre-Show will culminate a week-long Doctor Who week on YouTube, featuring content from popular YouTube channels like Nerdist, EmergencyAwesome, Doctor Puppet, PBSideaChannel, How to Cook That, and Rugburn.

Doctor Who 50th Live Pre-Show is produced by Nerdist Industries for BBC AMERICA. Executive producers are Chris Hardwick and Seth Laderman of Nerdist Industries.

BBC AMERICA is the U.S. home of Doctor Who and has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of its highest rated series throughout the year. Doctor Who Live Pre-Show is part of BBC AMERICA’s Doctor Who Takeover, a week of new programming and marathons. The anniversary of television’s longest-running sci-fi series is a global celebration, as Doctor Who will be simulcast for the first time in more than 75 countries. Written by Steven Moffat, Doctor Who: The Day of The Doctor stars the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith, the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, companion Jenna Coleman, with Billie Piper and John Hurt.

Ticket Giveaway

Nerdist Industries is looking for the 100 top Doctor Who fans in the Los Angeles area to attend the livestream simulcast at YouTube Space LA. The ticket giveaway will be announced on Nerdist.com on Tuesday November 19 at 9 am.

BBC AMERICA delivers U.S. audiences high-quality, innovative and intelligent programming. Established in 1998, it has been the launch pad for talent embraced by American mainstream pop culture, including Ricky Gervais, Gordon Ramsay, Graham Norton, and successful programming formats including ground-breaking non-scripted television like Top Gear and top-rated science-fiction like Doctor Who. Owned by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, BBC AMERICA has attracted both critical acclaim and major awards including two Emmy® Awards, five Golden Globes® and ten Peabody Awards. The channel attracts one of cable’s most affluent and educated audiences and is available on cable and satellite TV in 80 million homes. It broadcasts in both standard and high-definition, with content available On Demand across all major digital platforms. Online, www.bbcamerica.com is the place to go to dig deeper into pop culture with a British twist. Find out more by visiting www.press.bbcamerica.com or follow us on www.twitter.com/bbcamerica.

Nerdist Industries is a multi-platform creator of genre and popular culture content. Its online presence includes a website at Nerdist.com, a premium YouTube channel (youtube.com/nerdist), Nerdist News daily e-newsletters, 2 million Twitter followers, a Podcast Network including the flagship Nerdist Podcast, and the Nerdist Alliance, a community of curated partnerships with some of YouTube’s most talented and passionate creators. Nerdist also produces content for television including All Star Celebrity Bowling for AMC and In the Name of Science for National Geographic Channel. Further, Nerdist hosts live events around the country such as The Nerdist Podcast Live! and Course of the Force, an annual lightsaber relay in partnership with Lucasfilm LTD and Octagon which leads up to San Diego Comic-Con International.

Daniel “Julius Marx” Pickett has been around toys his whole life. The first line he ever collected was Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes line back in the 70s. He has been surrounded by collectables ever since.
In 1999 he was confounded by a lack of information and news about some of his favorite toy lines he was collecting. Since he couldn’t find the information he decided to pursue it himself thinking other people might also be interested in the same news. He started writing a weekly column on the toy industry and action figure for a toy news site and in a years time he tripled the sites daily traffic with his updates, reviews and product features.
He built relationships with every major toy manufacturer and many sculptors, painters and mold makers. He grew his hobby into a world wide expertise that the industry has embraced.
In 2004 he teamed up with his toy buddy Jason “ToyOtter” Geyer and they created their own website www.ActionFigureInsider.com.
Daniel has been quoted in both industry and mass media press outlets. Over the years Daniel and AFi have been sought out as experts in the field. Daniel was regularly featured on “Attack of the Show” on the G4 network as the primary contributor to their “Mint On Card” segment, and our front page has been linked to from USA Today’s
“Pop Candy” Blog twice. Daniel’s content has also been featured on MSNBC.com,
Wired.com, Fark.com, Boing-Boing, Gizmodo.com, Ain’t It Cool News, the Official
Star Wars blog, Geekologie, G4, CNet and Toy Fare magazine, among many
others. He has consulted on toy lines, books, documentaries and TV shows.
But all of that really just sounds snooty and “tootin’ his own horn” – the long and short of it is that Daniel loves toys and he LOVES talking about them.